MANGCHI

live at Viva! Pomona

David Choe's musical mayhem.

David Choe is a world renowned painter from Los Angeles. He is also an iconoclastic instigator and an adventurer . A creative soul unafraid to expand his vision into unexplored territories. This includes his surrealistic punk band Mangchi and their 360° experience Live At Viva! Pomona. The piece captures the band’s pre performance ritual of Choe painting his bandmates like ancient warriors before battle intercut with the mayhem of the concert, cameras situated half on stage and half amidst a churning moshpit. Ideally this is merely the beginning of an evolving collaborative relationship.

“I’ve been doing music my whole life. I was in bands in high school, but was always there waiting for four other guys to get their shit together. I think because of my narcissism and ego, I went into art and music became a hobby. So we just put this motley crew of weirdos together. And we’re making music just to make music. My musical taste is so diverse, from 80s pop like the Depeche Mode to Debbie Gibson to bands like Fugazi and underground hip-hop.I don't want to seem like a pretentious fuck wad, but I was painting and it was getting a little boring and I incorporated the painting in the music and now I'm really excited to start painting again."

People are flying into the camera and flying over it.

“I guess most bands don’t want the cameras on stage, and I was like, I don’t give a shit. People are flying into the camera and flying over it. It’s very ritualistic before each show where we just hang out and put on make up and joke around, it feels like you’re getting ready for something. I really think Wevr capturing that show in VR caught this weird intersection in our lives. I want people not to be scared and to be free. If you’re an artist you just go for it.”

- David Choe, artist

“The best place to capture an event is where they usually won’t let you put the camera. But David said we could do whatever we wanted. We knew we were gonna capture the performance and we also decided to capture the backstage scene as well. And David being a painter, he paints on the bodies of all the band members. So we captured this these very intimate moments of the body painting and talking and then this super energetic loud music performance.”

- Luis Blackaller, Director

“We are convinced David Choe can bring something totally unique and vital to immersive experiences,” says Wevr co-founder Anthony Batt. “He is an artist in the most literal sense, where his vision is not confined to any one medium. He has a curiosity about the world that we find exhilarating. And whatever trip he wants to take, we want to be there to document it.”